


I'm Coming Home

by unforgivablerunes (comealong_granger)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comealong_granger/pseuds/unforgivablerunes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Gadge - District 13 - 1,819 Words - Dedicated to Amanda.</p>
<p>Excerpt:<br/>She’d given up on the idea of ever being able to move her hands, to be free, to be in a room where she wasn’t shackled into a chair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Coming Home

With her eyes closed she could tell there was something different about the place she was in. It wasn’t unusual for her to sleep through days at a time. The treatment that the Capitol soldiers gave those captured from District Twelve was exhausting, and not surprising that it would cause her to sleep for days at time. They’d moved her once before, but it was different this time. Last time they’d moved her to a darker room, something more secluded than the last one. To muffle her screams, the soldier had joked when she’d asked about her change in location the last time. But this time, instead of darkness a dim light pressed against her eyelids. Instead of the feeling of cold metal cutting into sweat covered wrists, there was the prick of a needle pinned into her arm held in place by a cloth. She shifted, letting out a small scream, sitting up and using her free hand to rip it out. With her blue eyes open, breathing heavily, she looked down at her freed hands.

Free. The word echoed through her mind as she turned her hands over, examining the scars and dirt that covered them. She used to count the days that she was held in the cellar, the days of torture, but she’d lost count after the six month mark. She’d given up on the idea of ever being able to move her hands, to be free, to be in a room where she wasn’t shackled into a chair. Pulling the rest of the cords and wires lose, she slid out from under the blanket that someone had wrapped her in. Slowly sliding to the edge of the bed she let her feet land on the ground and when she stood up she nearly fell, her legs weak and giving out from under her. Catching herself on the bed, her hand grasped into the blanket.

With a few deep breaths, she managed to pull herself up onto two unsteady legs. It’d been months since she’d walked and her legs were no longer used to the weight. The muscles in them had slowly degraded from what they’d once been. Reaching out she braced herself against the wall, using it to hold up her weight. As she made her way to the door she stopped, her hand slowly twisting the door knob. Unlocked, it wasn’t locked, and her sense of freedom grew. As she twisted open the door she stuck her head out through the door before using the door’s frame to pull the rest of herself through. Leaning against the wall she walked through the hallway slowly. The hum of voices made her cringe, but the voices weren’t scornful or full of hate like the ones from the capital workers had been. As a young woman at the end of the hall looked up at her she flinched turning towards a window.

It was then that she caught sight of herself. Her hair was disheveled, the blonde covered by dirt and mud. Her face, marked with dirt and something darker, stared back at her. She reached a hand up and brushed her cheek, brushing off some of the dirt. Bruises. Under the thick layers of dirt were bruises, some newer than others, some so new that they were still puffy and swollen. There was a cut that went across her face, starting at the left corner of her forehead and dragging down across her eye, her nose and the corner of her mouth, where it travelled down her chin and across part of her neck. The last time she’d looked into a mirror, had seen what she looked like, she had been wearing a flowing blue dress with her blonde locks pinned back behind her ears. Her father had gotten news of capitol leaders visiting the district and requested an audience with the mayor and his family. The next thing she remembered were the sounds of screams, the sight of fire, and then….nothing.

The next time she woke up she’d been in shackles and as soon as she screamed, a fist caught her on the corner of her mouth. Reaching up a hand, she touched where she remembered getting the first hit, the first of many on the first day of countless.

“We hadn’t had a chance to clean you up, yet. We were afraid that it’d wake you and put you into a fit of terror,” the voice was calm but made the petite blonde cringe away nonetheless. She turned towards it, seeing that it came from an older woman. “We didn’t expect you to be awake for a few more days, you were out cold. Exhausted, being my best guess.”

“Whe-where am I, exactly?” Her voice cracked, and she shifted her weight back against the wall.

“This, this is District Thirteen.”

“That’s impossible,” the blonde shook her head and let her eyes scan around her, “Thirteen has been gone for years. Destroyed.”

“There were some of us who hid away from the bombs in our underground shelters, and that is where you are now. We’re the home of the rebellion.” The old woman reached out a hand, and after eying it for a while the blonde reached out to grab it. Despite her small stature and old age, the woman took on her weight and they began to walk down the hall together. “Now, tell me child, what’s your name and where do you come from?”

The blonde slowed to a stop and her eyes filled with tears. “District Twelve. District Twelve is my home. Was my home, I guess.” She began to wonder if there was anyone else here from home. Katniss. Peeta. Her mother and father. Rue. Rory. Gale. “Is there anyone else here? From Twelve?”

“Oh yes, many. If you give me your name I can look to see if your family has been relocated here, child.”

“Undersee. Madge Undersee.”

—————————————————————————————————-

The woman didn’t say anything after that but led Madge down the hall to a bathroom. Giving her some clean clothes and a towel she left her to herself. Turning on the water, she wasn’t surprised at how slow it took for the water to get warm. In all honesty, time wasn’t as important to her as it once had been so it didn’t bother her at the idea to wait for a hot bath. Stripping off of her clothes and slinking into the filling tub she gently rubbed at her skin. The pressure hurt, but with steady pressure the dirt slowly fell off.

At the sound of the door opening she reached up quickly and grabbed the towel holding it over herself. “Someone’s in here.”

The old woman from earlier walked in, accompanied by a girl a few years younger than herself, “you’ve been in here for nearly two hours.”

Two hours, had it really been that long? “I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize.” Her eyes drifted to the water, and it was now a greyish brown color from the dirt that had been on her earlier. The older woman approached her slowly, picking up a small bowl with clean water in it, before pouring it slowly down the back of her girls hair.

“No need to apologize, child, we were just afraid that you’d drowned,” the old woman said with a slight joy in her voice.

“Or turned into a prune,” the younger girl spoke for the first time, smiling at her.

She didn’t return the smile, but sat back as the woman cleaned the rest of the dirt out of your hair. “Were you able to find my parents?”

“Their looking through the records still, they’ll send word when they find something. No need to worry, child, let’s just get you clean.”

—————————————————————————————————-

Still unable to hold herself up on her own, she pressed a hand against the wall to hold herself up. As she walked through the halls, her eyes searched the people in the crowd for familiar faces. It wasn’t until then that she realized she couldn’t exactly picture anyone’s face from back home. She knew names, she knew who everyone was, but she couldn’t recall anyone’s face. Every time she tried they just blurred.

“Madge,” the sound of her name caught her off guard. She’d only just turned towards it that she saw a young boy running towards her. He was nearly the same height as her, only shorter by a few inches, but his dark brown hair tickled under her chin as he wrapped his arms around her. “Madge, I can’t believe it. Everyone thought…”

“Rory, be quiet. Don’t harass the young woman. Madge hasn’t been seen in nearly a year.”

Madge looked up to see a middle aged woman following after the boy. Rory? Her eyes went down to the boy as he began to pull away. Before he could get too far back she pulled him back into her arms and rested her head against him. “Rory, oh thank god you got out.” She pulled away, her blue eyes looking into his grey ones. Looking back over to Mrs. Hawthorne she smiled for the first time in what seemed a long time.

Yet the woman didn’t smile back, “not everyone did.”

Madge pulled away from Rory and put her hand back against the wall. “Gale?”

“No, he’s here. A soldier, even.”

“Best of the rebellion, outside of the Victors,” Rory added in, but his voice was quiet and his eyes were downcast. “Prim, it was Prim.”

—————————————————————————————————-

Madge went with the Hawthornes to the home they’d been assigned. All of them were there, and alive, and that gave her a sigh of relief but almost as soon as she did she was forced to remember Prim.

Prim had been the sweetest person that Madge had ever met, and now she was gone. Nearly everyone was gone, from the list of names that Rory had listed. None of the Hawthornes mentioned her parents, and she didn’t bother to ask. It wasn’t in her to find out the truth, because she feared that the truth wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

She’d been there for nearly an hour when the door opened and shut behind her. She heard his voice before she saw his face, and as she stood with Rory’s help she watched as he hugged his mother and kissed her cheek.

“Gale, there’s someone here you need to see,” Rory’s voice was calm, but he was steady as he held her up.

When Gale’s eyes met hers, her heart thudded against her chest. Without thinking, she moved away from Rory and attempted to run towards him. Her legs started to give out, but before they managed to he went the rest of the way to meet her. His arms wrapping around her and his face burrowing into her neck.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt at home.


End file.
